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At his current pace, Alex Palou might turn the season finale in Nashville into a championship celebration by clinching his fourth title in five years prior to the Music City Grand Prix in Tennessee on Labor Day Weekend.

Sponsors and Indy Car officials understand the reality of the circumstance, with Palou potentially wrapping up a championship in Portland.

“I think we need to celebrate what Alex is doing,” said Scott Borchetta, founder of the race’s title sponsor Big Machine and Borchetta Bourbon. “This is Michael Schumacher time. This is (Ayrton) Senna time. This is Jeff Gordon time. So if he has to clinch in Portland, which is possible, we’ve got to make sure people come and see one of the greatest of all time. This guy is on the precipice of four championships in five years. You just put the biggest crown jewel in that crown, and you don’t want to miss this guy. He’s just a little bit better than everybody else.

“… Yeah, he probably will clinch, so we’re already prepared for that. You don’t want to miss it. It’s still going to be a showdown. It’s still the battle of Music City. You’ve still got to see this race.”

President of the Music City Grand Prix Anne Fischgrund said Borchetta turned over management of the September race to Penske Entertainment with future plans for the race to return downtown from the oval at Nashville Superspeedway as soon as 2027.

“I can tell you there’s a lot of interest in the race returning downtown. The mayor is absolutely in favor of it,” Fischgrund said. “There’s a lot of development going on, not just the stadium but we refer to that part of Nashville as the East Bank, and there’s a huge development happening all across that area in the East Bank.

“So what we’re trying to do is have conversations to build it into the infrastructure. If we do this right — the vision has always been, let’s be the Monaco of the south. So we’ve got a lot of work to do, but the conversations are ongoing, and that’s my hope.”

–Field Level Media